Any Sort of Blue Sky
by themostrandomfandom
Summary: Brittany and Santana find ways to love each other, no matter what their situation. Five Mouseverse vignettes.
1. Chapter 1

**I.**

**Fourteen**

Nowadays, Santana has so many secrets.

She hears Brittany's voice, sweet and punctuated with little upswing halts, lilting into the hallway from Brittany's bedroom: "―and then Princess Jasmine fell in love with Alice in Wonderland, except she didn't realize that she was in―"

(She did realize, though. Like last week, actually.)

For a second, Santana's heart speeds and she feels lightheaded. "Britt? What are you doing?" she says, fluttery all over. She steps through the door, her heart beating fast.

(She just couldn't say so, that's all. She still can't.)

Brittany and her sister sit spooned together in Brittany's beanbag chair, slumped against the wall, the _Disney Princess: Happily Ever After Stories _book open across their laps. Brittany's little sister leans her head against Brittany's shoulder, clutching her blanket to her chin, listening with rapt attention as Brittany points to the illustrations on the page. Their hair—Brittany's blonde like summer, her sister's blonde like autumn—lays hay-swept over the breast of Brittany's dance studio t-shirt. Brittany looks up from the book, and, even though Santana has seen them a million times, her eyes catch Santana by surprise.

A forever kind of blue.

"Santana," Brittany jumps, startled. A wide smile replaces her shock and oh god.

Brittany's smile doesn't fade and Santana can't stop looking at her.

(When Santana lies in bed at night, she replays every look and smile, wondering, hands folded over her ribcage. Sometimes she is such a girl. But that's the problem, isn't it? Brittany is such a girl, too.)

"Scooch over, munchkin," Brittany says dopily, dislodging her sister from her lap as she makes room on the chair for Santana, keeping her gaze locked with Santana's the whole time. The room seems bright, even though it's just after sundown outside, and Santana feels both inexplicably nervous and high and light and happy all at once.

It's only after Santana flops down next to Brittany that she feels the heat radiating from Brittany's body and realizes, unexpectedly, that Brittany's ears are sunburn pink; Brittany's blushing.

"Hey," Brittany says, shy all of a sudden. Her voice dips. She glances at Santana's mouth, avoiding her eyes for a second.

"Hey," Santana says back, shy because Brittany is shy, and that almost never happens.

(The other day after practice, they played the apple stem game. Santana told Brittany her stem broke at C, but it didn't. Now she's got that B stem hidden away in her desk drawer. Brittany's stem took forever to twist off and finally snapped on S, so you know, you know, you know―)

Brittany's little sister flops her legs over both Brittany's and Santana's laps and nuzzles into Brittany again; she watches Santana with wide, kindergarten eyes. Santana had forgotten she was there.

Not quite sure where to look anymore, Santana glances down at the page and sees that Brittany's not even reading from the story part of the book—just the title page where the illustrator has positioned a handful of characters in pinks and blues and greens and yellows around the table of contents. Santana bumps her knees against Brittany's leg and settles in, molding her body to fit Brittany's on the squishy chair. She folds her hands over Brittany's shoulder and looks to Brittany's fingers curled around the edges of the book.

"Keep reading?" she sighs more than says.

Brittany opens her mouth to answer something, but doesn't get far.

"Bedtime, pumpkin!" Brittany's dad's voice hollers down the hallway and Brittany's little sister groans.

"But Santana just got here!" she complains, looking to the two big girls to save her.

"Sorry, squirt," Santana shrugs. "I don't make the rules."

"Hide me," Brittany's sister begs, burying her face in Brittany's shoulder. She pulls her blanket up over her head. Brittany and Santana share a look over the top of her.

"Silly!" Brittany scolds, tugging the blanket down. "Santana will still be here when you wake up tomorrow."

"Besides," Santana reasons, "the last time I was here, you called me a meanie. You don't really want to hang around with me anyway." She pokes Brittany's sister in the ribs with her thumb.

"You are a meanie," Brittany's sister protests, wiggling away from Santana's touch, her voice muffled by Brittany's shoulder. "But you're our meanie and―"

Brittany cuts her off. "Not ours," she says. "Mine. And she's not mean. And you need to go to bed. You have playgroup tomorrow, I think. Dad says." And with that, Brittany bounces the little girl off her lap, jostling her to her feet. Brittany prods her sister to get going just as their dad appears in the doorway.

(Santana's stopped taking all the "dream guy" quizzes in Cosmo Girl because they just make her feel kind of sad.)

"Come on, sweetie," Brittany's dad says, scooping his younger daughter up in a hug hold before she can dodge him. She squeals, but he ignores her, glancing instead at Brittany and Santana, still curled against each other in the sagging chair.

Briefly, Santana feels guilty, caught even though she and Brittany haven't done anything wrong. She doesn't know why; she smolders with a shame so deep that she can't even allow herself to think about it, really. Brittany's dad doesn't seem to notice, though. He just smiles; Brittany so has his mouth.

"Hey, Santana-banana!" he says warmly and Santana feels her face heat. She kind of hates that nickname, but she kind of loves it, too.

"Hey, Mr. Pierce," she says weakly. She doesn't move away from Brittany and Brittany doesn't move away from her, either.

"You girls gonna watch the baseball game tonight?" Brittany's dad asks teasingly as Brittany's little sister squirms in his arms. "Let's go Indians!"

No television, not tonight; Santana can already tell. Everything feels too important, somehow.  
Brittany shakes her head. "I have a moral abstraction against stealing," she says vaguely.

(When she can't sleep at night, Santana tries to think of all the little Brittany things that Brittany says during the day and puzzle them apart, one by one. When she finally gets them, she can't help but grin into the darkness. Sometimes she swears that Brittany only really makes jokes for her.)

"I'm thinking... _no_," Santana replies slowly, smiling, checking Brittany's face to make sure she's read the situation correctly. God, Brittany is just so―

"Okay. Suit yourselves!" Brittany's dad grins. "'Night, chickadees!"

At once: "G'night, Dad" and "'Night, Mr. Pierce."

Brittany's dad shuffles out of the room, Brittany's sister slung over his shoulder. He whistles cheerfully while she groans and rolls her eyes, thoroughly annoyed. He leaves the door open, but neither Santana nor Brittany gets up to close it. Instead, they just stare at each other.

Brittany looks like something else, comfy below the neck in a soft t-shirt and pajama bottoms, but with her hair still fixed from the day and pretty diamond studs pushpinned into the soft plush of her pink earlobes, like pearls resting upon a pillow. Santana stares at Brittany's ears too long. She stares at the light brush of freckles over Brittany's nose too long. She stares at Brittany's lips, still pink with gloss, too long, too long, too long.

When Santana returns to herself, she finds Brittany staring straight into her eyes. She shudders just a little.

"Quinn said that Jason H. likes you," Brittany blurts out.

"Who?" Santana asks.

"She says he was checking out your ass in gym."

Brittany wears an expression Santana can't quite place. Her bottom lip thins to a sliver and she acts like they're talking about something super serious, even though, duh, it's just about some stupid boy.

"So?"

It comes out a little sharper than Santana wanted it to. She flinches; Brittany doesn't and doesn't seem to notice, either.

"You don't care?" Brittany asks, surprised.

Santana calculates: should she care? Maybe she should, but.

"He's a skateboarder, Britt. We don't get with skateboarders."

(He's not you.)

"But he plays basketball, too."

"He's just on the freshmen squad. He's not even JV."

"Okay."

"Okay."

(Nobody is.)

They both sound relieved, and maybe that should bother Santana, but it doesn't. She still has her hands on Brittany's shoulder and their legs pushed together. She can't tell if it's her heart or Brittany's beating so crazily like this. Maybe both.

Brittany reaches awkwardly behind herself and nudges the door closed with fumbling fingertips, never looking away from Santana. The door clicks into place. Brittany stares, her expression deep and unreadable.

"Santana?" she says suddenly. "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

"What?" Santana asks, surprised. Her brow scrunches as she tries to follow Brittany's train of thought. After a second, Santana shrugs, blank. "I dunno."

"Like, if you could be anything. Like, whatever you wanted."

(It's not that she doesn't have an answer; it's that she has too many. Braver, for one thing. Better, for another. Different than this, whatever "this" is, really.)

She shrugs again and smiles past all the things she's thinking, just watching Brittany. She focuses on what she can say. "Famous, I guess? Rich? I dunno. What do you want to do when you grow up, BrittBritt?"

Brittany gives a quirky smile that somehow makes Santana feel smart and wonderful and like Brittany looks up to her, even though Santana knows that she doesn't deserve any of that. Brittany inhales deeply, her ears pink again, her cheeks flushed and breathing quick, as though she's about to tell a big secret.

(For a second, Santana's heart beats like a sprint, hopeful for something she can't even name. She holds her breath, like she did twisting the stem on that apple.)

"I want to be a Spanish minor."

"What?"

It isn't what Santana expected, like... at all. But nothing ever is with Brittany. Brittany glances at Santana again, bashful. Her eyes look over Santana's mouth, then quickly away again, like she's nervous about what Santana will say. For a second, Santana thinks Brittany might kiss her. But then, a Spanish minor? What does that even mean?

"You know, in college," Brittany says, as though it will help.

"You want to be a Spanish minor when you grow up?"

"When I turn twenty-one, yeah." A pause. "I just... I dunno. I really, really want to learn Spanish."

Santana can't help it: she smiles. God, Brittany is so―

(Cute. Perfect. Wonderful. Thoughtful. Random. Brittany. Perfect.)

"Well, I could teach you some, if you wanted, BrittBritt. Like, what do you wanna know?"

_"¿Còmo se dice _'You still haven't answered my question yet, cheater?' _en español?"_ Brittany grins.

"Hey!" Santana says, lunging at Brittany to tickle her ribs. Brittany squeals and contorts in the chair, like a cat falling from a high place. She holds up her hands to fend Santana off, but Santana still manages to get past her defenses, poking her fingers into Brittany's side, eliciting loud giggles from both of them. "I was trying to save you some tuition money, _ingrata_!"

_"¡Ayuda! ¡ Ayuda! ¡Policía!" _Brittany squirms off the beanbag chair and onto the floor.

(Santana has no idea how much Spanish Brittany actually understands, which makes whispering her secretos against Brittany's cheek when Brittany is asleep dangerous and somehow also a relief, like maybe―)

Santana grins so widely that her face hurts and sprawls to occupy Brittany's recently vacated space. She feels Brittany's leftover heat on the chair and soaks it in and soaks up the moment like a cat in a sunbeam. Brittany watches her, breathless, and Santana wonders what she's thinking. She always wonders what Brittany's thinking.

When Santana finally answers Brittany's question, she doesn't lie: "I want to be happy."

Brittany looks at her reverently, and for a second Santana swears that Brittany knows all her secrets. "Me, too," she says quietly, suddenly still. She looks deeply at Santana with her forever eyes, her expression soft and deep and pliant, like Santana could tell Brittany anything in that moment and Brittany would believe it, completely and with all her heart.

(She just couldn't say. She still can't.)

Later that night, when they both lie in Brittany's bed, the quilt pulled up to their shoulders and their bodies pressed together, Santana leans over to check the green light on Brittany's digital clock―4:17 am. She counts Brittany's breathing, the deep troughs and little gasping crests of it, and moves in, soft and quiet, to press a kiss to Brittany's cheek.

Santana has so many secrets that she doesn't know what to do with all of them nowadays.

She sighs and feels Brittany shudder with dreams in her arms. Her voice is barely above just breath.

_"With you_."

She falls to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

**II.**

**Fifteen**

Brittany's mom smells like a vanilla bouquet and has her hair done up in the same pretty ringlets that she wore to Brittany's cousin's wedding two years ago. Brittany's dad shaved his beard down all the way and cleaned the smudges from his glasses. He seems somehow younger without any stubble on his face.

He and Brittany's mom listen to smooth jazz in the front seat, holding hands over the center console. Brittany's little sister told them they looked "spiffy" before they left her behind with the babysitter. For once, they drive Brittany's dad's work car instead of the family van.

Brittany is with her parents because she only has her learner's permit and can't drive by herself yet, even though she has someplace to be. She sits in the backseat, feeling the soft strange shush of suede beneath her palms and breathing her mom's perfume in through her nose. They're going to drop her off.

It isn't a long drive to Santana's house, but it's still long enough for Brittany to get lost in thought along the way.

Santana didn't mention anything about Valentine's Day at school today, even though there were hearts and balloons and sugar cookies all over the hallways.

That doesn't mean that Santana didn't notice that it's Valentine's Day, though.

(Brittany knows that sometimes Santana is quietest about things she notices most.)

Brittany rests her forehead against the window, feeling February cold against her skin. It reaches almost all the way to her brain, like an ice cream freeze. She counts the droplets of water spangling the black sprawl of the glass.

Nineteen.

"You okay, Brittany Sue?" her dad asks, glancing in the rearview mirror to check on her. His shiny glasses reflect against the streetlights.

Brittany nods, but doesn't make a reply.

"It's too bad you have school tomorrow," her dad says.

Brittany quirks an eyebrow against the window. "Why?"

"It's just too bad that you can't celebrate," he shrugs.

Brittany wants to tell him that sometimes it's okay to celebrate things quietly or even without saying that that's what you're doing—to make everything a quiet celebration, in a way, because you never know when you might finally get the chance to celebrate out loud or even if you ever will get the chance to do that at all—but she can't think of how to say exactly what she means and then she isn't even sure if what she's thinking is right anyway.

Her breath forms a fog on the cool glass—_a watermark kiss_—and she waits.

Her dad turns his work car onto Santana's street.

* * *

When Santana opens the door, she asks Brittany a question right away: "Your parents aren't going to Rossilli's, are they?"

Brittany frowns. "I dunno," she says. "Why?"

Santana gestures for Brittany to step inside, out from the cold. "Because that's where my parents are going," she shrugs.

It's her way of telling Brittany that they have her house to themselves tonight.

Brittany hums in answer, but doesn't say anything aloud. Instead, she shucks her coat and Santana watches her with careful attention. When she slides off her shoes, Santana stoops and moves them over to the mat. For a second, Santana's eyes seem the same kind of sad as the music they play in Columbus coffee shops, but then she sees Brittany smiling at her and seems to forget her troubles.

"We don't have to do our homework right away," Brittany says.

"We don't," Santana agrees, flipping off the foyer light and leading Brittany into the house.

(The coffee shop music in her eyes switches to a happier tune.)

* * *

That's the nice thing about being popular, Brittany guesses—everyone just assumes that she and Santana will have dates for tonight, and the kind of dates that most kids don't talk about in the ninth grade, too.

No one will ask them about it in tomorrow during homeroom.

Santana likes things best that way and Brittany doesn't mind.

* * *

Neither one of them actually says the words "Valentine's Day" all night.

Instead, they just watch movies, mostly in silence, with Santana's legs strewn over Brittany's lap and both of girls playing with each other's hands and hair and shirt sleeves in a way that should probably be thoughtless, but really, really isn't.

At the part in the movie where Topher Grace kisses Kate Bosworth, Santana glances up at Brittany with her sad coffeehouse eyes, but then looks quickly away.

Brittany waits until the part about Kate Bosworth's six smiles to lean down and sneak a kiss to the corner of Santana's mouth, pressing her lips just beside Santana's but not on them quite yet. She waits for a second, holding her breath, until Santana turns her head slightly, asking for more without saying that that's what she's doing.

Everything happens so up close.

Brittany shifts her neck. Her nose nudges Santana's cheek. All at once, she's kissing Santana, this time full on the lips.

At first, Santana doesn't kiss back, but then she really, really does.

Santana's eyes brighten.

(Suddenly, it's like dance music just started playing at the coffeehouse.)

* * *

With anyone else, Brittany gets bored of making out kind of quickly, which is why she's made out with so many people from school, including most of the boys on the JV football team, a couple of baseball players, and even that nerdy sophomore kid from her study hall—you know, just to keep things interesting.

Brittany can make out with Santana for forever without getting bored, though. Every kiss with Santana is like a brand new color that's not even on the color wheel yet or a musical note that no one has ever heard before. Brittany feels like an astronaut, discovering untold stars in the way Santana moves against her. She's pushed Santana's shirt and bra up and has her hands upon Santana's breasts. Santana runs her tongue against Brittany's and the DVD title screen plays over and over again on a loop.

(Brittany knows she's in love with Santana, but she also knows how to keep secrets.)

* * *

Santana never really talks when they kiss and usually she stays super quiet afterwards, too, so much coffee shop sadness in her eyes that sometimes it's hard for Brittany to even look at her, really.

That's why it surprises Brittany when, instead of reaching for her algebra homework, Santana just lies down in Brittany's lap again and hums. "Play with my hair, BrittBritt?" she chirps, closing her eyes and settling in.

(When they were eleven, Santana said they were too old to play pretend anymore.)

(They still pretend sometimes nowadays, though—even though they're fifteen and neither one of them says that that's what they're doing.)

"Okay," Brittany agrees, leaning down to kiss Santana's forehead before she can stop herself.

Santana just sighs. "Britt," she says airily, not a chastisement, just.

Brittany combs her fingers through Santana's hair, tracing the strands all the way down to the ends. It feels black and sleek and Brittany loves it against her skin.

"Thank you for coming over tonight," Santana purrs.

It's the closest they get to naming it—this thing that they're doing right now, this testing each other out.

"Thank you for inviting me."

* * *

Brittany's dad glances in the rearview mirror at her. "It's our little girl's last childhood Valentine's Day," he muses to Brittany's mom. "Next year, she'll have a date. She'll go out on the town, breaking hearts left and right—"

"Dad!" Brittany groans, smacking at the back of the driver's seat.

"What?" he shrugs. "It's true."

He doesn't see the pout of her bottom lip, red and swollen from so many bruising kisses, through the dark. He doesn't know that she and Santana never got around to their algebra homework at all. Brittany wouldn't mind telling him, she doesn't think—or at least she wouldn't mind if Santana wouldn't mind it.

But.

It's so cold that the water condensation on the window has frozen to ice.

"I liked this Valentine's Day," Brittany mumbles, tracing out the water droplets as though they were a star chart.

The fact that she can still feel Santana with her even with Santana far away tells Brittany exactly where she is.

(Even with pitch black outside the window, sometimes she glimpses brand new colors though the dark.)


	3. Chapter 3

**III.**

**Sixteen**

Every year, the Cheerios who made it through Coach Sue's notorious August training clinic celebrate their collective survival with a giant end-of-summer slumber party at Hope and Melissa Radzinski's McMansion on Dudley Road. Every year, their end-of-summer slumber party inevitably devolves into the whole team circling up their sleeping bags in the basement while they eat pizza and gossip about boys.

This time around, Whitney Aiko is going on and on about Cam Stoldt, who took Geo and Trig II with her last year. He's tall and looks kind of like Ian Somerhalder, or so she says. She's seriously crushing on him and he smiled at her the other day when they ran into each other at the Kewpee Burger. Now she's got the whole squad thinking on the matter, a team of translators trying to parse out a single ambiguous word in a foreign text.

Does he like her back or not?

Homecoming is just around the corner, so these things matter, you know.

On any other night, Santana would probably advise Whitney to offer Cam a blow job because, the way Santana figures it, if Whitney did that, she would know for sure that the guy liked her if he said yes and for sure that he was some kind of freak if he said no. After all, Santana is a team player and she's all about helping her squad out with their girl problems.

She can do chit-chat.

Tonight, though? Well, tonight is different.

For one thing, it's Santana's sixteenth birthday, but nobody knows that it is except for Brittany. For another thing, Santana kind of needs help figuring out a girl problem of her own—only she can't ask anybody about her problem because, well.

She tries to take what the other girls say to Whitney about Cam Stoldt and apply it to her deal.

"Was it the first time you caught him looking at you?" Katie Eisner asks.

(No, definitely not. Santana's crush looks at her all the time. She's looking at Santana right now, in fact.)

"Well, what kind of smile was it?" Britton Storley offers.

(The kind that makes Santana feel like the best person in the world, even though she isn't that at all.)

"Did he say anything to you afterwards?"

(No, not about the smiling, she didn't, but she did spin Santana when they danced together later that afternoon in glee club. And they talk all the time anyway. They're best friends. Duh.)

(That's kind of the problem, in fact—it's just so hard to figure out if Brittany like-likes her or just friend-likes her.)

(Girls normally ask their best friends about these sorts of things, except, well.)

It's Brittany who reaches across the circle to offer Whitney Aiko a reassuring tap on the knee. "Girl," Brittany crows, putting on her fake ghetto voice, "he's totally into you!"

"You really think so?" Whitney asks, trying and failing to hide a grin.

"Totally," Brittany says and the other Cheerios all nod and murmur in agreement.

(Santana has to excuse herself to go outside for some fresh air right then.)

* * *

Some minutes later, Brittany finds Santana on the back porch, leaned up against the rail of the deck. The sun hasn't set yet, even though it's late. Evening is still in its middle bloom. Red and purple clouds paint the sky overhead and long shadows fall across the yard.

Brittany stops just short of where Santana stands. "I'm sorry we had to go to the end-of-summer slumber party on your birthday," she apologizes, even though it's not her fault at all.

Honestly, Santana has purposefully concealed her birthday from her classmates for years because she doesn't want anyone to realize how young she is. It's bad enough that she's practically the only incoming junior at McKinley still without her driver's license; she doesn't need everyone hassling her about how she'll be jailbait until three months after her high school graduation on top of that, too.

Santana's also the one who insisted that she and Brittany go to this lame-ass party in the first place.

(And, hell, while she's on it, she's the one who came up with the whole stupid "We're just friends" thing, too, and look at how that's bitten her in the ass.)

That's why it's totally unfair for Santana to start crying.

"I'm just so sick of them bitching about everything," she chokes, shocked at how quickly she starts to lose it. She covers her mouth with her hand, as if doing so will somehow help her hold back her tears, but it doesn't. She just cries harder, a sob breaking in her throat.

Brittany's eyes go wide. "Santana," she says, taking the last few steps to where Santana stands.

Santana knows what's coming before it happens and braces for it: Brittany gathers Santana up in a hug, pulling Santana's face to her shoulder and cradling the back of Santana's head with her palm. It's moments like these that make it impossible for Santana to know whether or not Brittany feels the same way about her as she does about Brittany—they're both too close and too far, too much and not enough, exactly what a best friend should do, but also something that a person's crush might do if that crush liked her back.

(God, Santana shouldn't even want Brittany to like her like that! She shouldn't even like Brittany like that herself, and yet.)

Santana lets out another sob on Brittany's shoulder. She can't get the way Brittany smiled at her in glee club out of her mind. It wasn't just a best friend smile, Santana swears, she swears, she swears.

It takes her a long while to be able to speak again, but when she can, she manages, "I'm sorry for crying, Britt. I don't know what my problem is."

Brittany doesn't let go of her. "It's okay," she says. Then, "Well, I mean, I wish you weren't sad, but it's okay if you need to cry since you are sad anyway."

Santana can't help but laugh a bit at Brittany's honesty, even though she's fairly certain that Brittany wasn't trying to crack a joke. "I'm sorry for ruining the party for you, though. I bet you're missing Truth or Dare downstairs," she amends.

Brittany pulls back from Santana a bit, but only far enough to lift Santana's chin, tilting her face up so that they're looking right at each other. She reaches out with her thumb and wipes the curve of Santana's cheek, cleaning away tear tracks. When Brittany drops her hand, Santana sees black smudges staining Brittany's skin; Santana's mascara must be running all over the place.

God.

"It's okay," Brittany says. "It's your birthday, so I want to be where you are." She gets a mischievous look in her eye. _"Plus," _she says, drawing a breath before starting into song, _"it's your birthday and you'll cry if you want to, cry if you want to, cry if you want to..."_

Santana gives another laugh—real, if wet. "Those aren't the words!" she protests.

Brittany shrugs. "Close enough," she says, rolling her eyes a bit. She waits until Santana's breathing has calmed down and then smiles a small, comforting smile. "Happy Sweet Sixteen, Santana," she says quietly, leaning forward to kiss Santana on the forehead.

It isn't exactly the kiss Santana wants for her sixteenth birthday, but it's the best one Brittany can give her, under the circumstances. No on-the-lips kissing at all-girls parties, after all, and especially not in front of sliding glass doors, where anyone could see them. Those are Santana's own rules.

(A raw hurt stabs through her heart.)

(It's her own fault she has so many problems, really.)

Brittany must feel Santana flinch because she peels back just then, disentangling from Santana and taking a step away. She doesn't say anything, but she does fix Santana with a concerned look.

"I can't go back in there while they're all thinking with their vaginas," Santana explains. She tries to put on a haughty front, but can't exactly manage it, sniffing back the last of her tears.

Brittany just nods, understanding. She looks at Santana like she gets what Santana really means, instead of just what Santana says. "Abby Arlington told me they were going to watch a movie soon anyway," she says. "We can just hang out until they start it. I can see the TV screen through the basement window from here. We don't even have to go in for the movie, though. We can stay out here as long as you want."

It's the gracious offer and another one of those things Brittany does that reminds Santana that she never really stood a chance when it came to falling so hard for her best friend. Santana leans back against the deck rail and shrugs her shoulders. "What are we going to do out here, BrittBritt?"

Brittany comes over to join her at the deck rail. "We'll celebrate," she says. "I could sing you 'Happy Birthday.'"

Santana can't help but grin even as she refuses. "Don't you dare or they'll hear you through the basement window and then I'll get the full treatment. Some of them brought shaving cream in their duffles. I saw it."

Brittany hops up on the railing, kicking her feet against the wood. "Whatever you say, birthday girl."

(She smiles her you're-the-best-person-in-the-world smile and Santana wonders and she wonders and she wonders.)


	4. Chapter 4

**IV.**

**Eighteen**

Brittany thinks that climbing through Santana's window is thrilling, like going on an adventure in her own neighborhood, except not Brittany's neighborhood—Santana's, which is almost like Brittany's neighborhood, but not.

(Yet.)

She likes climbing through Santana's window to see Santana at night because it's romantic and reckless, like arctic exploration—and especially now, when it's winter and snow clings to the knees of Brittany's pants as she pulls herself up from the eaves of Santana's roof over the windowsill. It's also the good kind of scary, like when the person who's "it" walks around outside your hiding place in Hide-and-Seek and you can see the bottoms of his shoes through the crack in the door.

If Santana's parents ever catch Brittany climbing into Santana's room through Santana's window, Brittany doesn't know what they'll do. She kind of thinks they'll just roll their eyes and ask her why she doesn't come in the house through the door, for god's sake, but it's kind of fun to pretend that they would get all protective of Santana and say that they didn't like the idea of that bad news Pierce girl sneaking around, corrupting their innocent daughter.

In any case, Brittany doesn't want to risk getting caught, just because she likes sleeping in Santana's bed on school nights, and she knows that even if Santana's parents maybe don't care so much about the sex thing, they probably care about the Santana and Brittany staying up late and making each other tired thing because it's bad for their grades.

It's better not to risk it, so Brittany keeps quiet.

And actually, Santana isn't sure if her parents know that she and Brittany have sex.

Once, Brittany and Santana talked about it and Santana said that she kind of thought sometimes that her parents do know about the sex, but that they just choose not to say anything about it because Santana and Brittany are almost adults and they've had a lot of sleepovers over the years and they're majorly in love, so duh.

But Santana only said that the one time.

Most of the time, Santana acts like her parents don't know about it and gets really creeped out when she thinks that they might have heard something, which is why she doesn't really like to have sex when her parents are home, even if they're sleeping, which Brittany gets, so it's fine.

Brittany doesn't want Santana to feel creeped out when they're together, which is why Brittany totally isn't doing what Santana thinks she's doing when Brittany roots her head under Santana's heavy, black comforter and starts wriggling around, turning her whole body so her head faces the foot of the bed and her legs hang over the side of it.

"BrittBritt?" Santana says, voice all scratchy. "What are you doing?"

She can probably feel Brittany's hair brushing up her thighs, which is only happening because Brittany can't see under the comforter and not for any sexy reason. Brittany wishes she had a flashlight or something. Santana lifts the comforter and looks under it at Brittany, worried.

"We can't, BrittBritt," she says warningly. "My parents are home tonight."

Brittany shakes her head, breathing the stuffy air around her. In the dark, every look Santana gives her seems thoughtful and somehow wise. Santana's eyes deepen, outer space black. Brittany thinks Santana is beautiful in every light, but also that she's beautiful in shadow, where she moves like pretty cursive written from a fountain pen.

"I'm just looking for my sock," Brittany explains. "I think the sheets ate it."

Santana smiles then, the corners of her mouth pinching back. She gives a little gasp and Brittany doesn't think Santana even knows she does it. Santana giggles. "You and your socks, Britty," she says, shaking her head. "Seriously, sweetheart, I could just turn up the heat."

"Socks are sexy," Brittany says.

"You're sexy," Santana coos.

"Could you turn on the light?" Brittany asks.

"Yup, yup," says Santana, shooting Brittany another adoring smile before dropping the comforter back down over her. Brittany feels the mattress shift as Santana leans over to her nightstand to click on her lamp as Santana pulls her legs up so that now she sits cross-legged instead of stretched out, giving Brittany more room to look. Brittany lifts up the blanket to see just as a dull, yellow-brown glow permeates the room. Santana tugs the blanket up again, holding it pinched high like a tent top so that Brittany can move around freely underneath it.

"Thanks," Brittany mutters, still padding around near the foot of the bed, running her hands through the bunched folds of Santana's silky sheets, hunting with her fingertips for cotton against the satin. She hums while she looks. It should be easy to find a lime green sock with pink polka dots on it against the black of Santana's bed, but it isn't.

"Maybe it fell on the floor?" Santana suggests, peering over the side of the bed. Brittany emerges from under the covers and checks the floor, too. She doesn't see it on her side of the room and she can't imagine how it would have gotten on Santana's side of the room, either. After all, they haven't had sex tonight, so it's not like they threw their clothes all over the place or anything. Santana shrugs. "Maybe it fell under the bed?" she says.

Brittany grins and grips on the edge of the mattress before tossing her head over the side of the bed towards the floor. She peers, upside-down, under the bed frame, and it almost seems like she's scuba diving or something, searching for underwater treasure. Her hair falls all around her face and she feels her cheeks pinking because of the gravity.

Hanging off the side of Santana's bed like this reminds Brittany of when she was little and she used to swing on the monkey bars by her knees. She was always the best one at staying upside-down out of all the girls; she could stay like that for a way long time without feeling sick or dizzy or anything, except sometimes she had to stop because the metal bars hurt the backs of her legs.

Brittany can't really see what's under Santana's bed that well because, for one, she's at the wrong angle, and, for two, the lamp on Santana's nightstand isn't that bright; most of the room is still dim. The landscape under Santana's bed looks dark and lunar, with rising shadows and weird crags of stuff jammed under there for storage. Brittany looks with her hands instead of her eyes and mostly she just feels carpet, but then her hands slap at something flat and cool: paper.

She shifts the paper around and pulls it towards her, meaning to move it so that she can figure out if maybe her sock is next to it somehow, but then she shifts the paper and finds out that it's heavy—not just one paper, but a whole notebook.

And then the notebook shifts a little bit into the light and there's Santana's writing on it, and it's not like Brittany means to read it, really, it's just that when you see writing and you know how to read you can't help but understand the letters and stuff, and especially when those letters spell your own name like four times on the edge of a page.

_Brittany_

_Brittany_

_Brittany_

_Brittany_

"Santana?" she says, snatching up the notebook and swinging herself upright again, "What's this?"

It's not one of Santana's school notebooks from this tri, because Brittany recognizes those.

(Brittany has all sorts of random stuff about Santana memorized, not because Brittany's a creepy stalker or anything, but because everything about Santana is important to her.)

Santana glances at the notebook, open to a page with her writing all over it, and Brittany does, as well. Brittany sees all sorts of writing all over the page, and scribbles, too, except the writing looks a little funny, like bigger than how Santana normally writes.

For a second, Santana reads, but then her eyebrows shoot up by her hairline; she darts forward and snatches at the notebook. It's not like Brittany wants to keep the notebook from Santana, but when someone lunges to take something away from you, your natural reaction is to clamp down on it, so Brittany holds on tight to the notebook to keep Santana from grabbing it away.

"Britt," says Santana, breathless. "Please." She suddenly seems a bit panicked.

"Okay," Brittany relents at once, confused but sympathetic. She pushes the notebook towards Santana on the bed and tries not to read it because it seems like Santana doesn't want her to do that. Maybe it's like Santana's diary or something, except Brittany's pretty sure that Santana doesn't keep a diary because Santana hates writing things out by hand and thinks her own handwriting is ugly.

(It isn't—it's pretty, with all these loops and little curlicue swirls.)

Brittany doesn't think she'd mind it if Santana read her diary right now because most of it is just about Santana anyway—like a long list of all the reasons why Santana is perfect and makes every day awesome for Brittany—but Brittany understands that not everyone feels comfortable showing off everything that they keep inside their heads to the whole world, or even to people they love. Santana needs space to breathe and Brittany gets that.

Santana takes the notebook, but then looks embarrassed of herself for reacting so strongly to Brittany touching it. She ducks her head, shy, the weak light from the lamp leaving shadows along her face. She sighs. "Britt... I...," Santana stammers.

Brittany shrugs. "It's okay," she says. "You don't have to show me if you don't want."

"No," Santana says right away. "Britt, it's not that, it's just...," her eyes fall on the notebook page again and it's like an invitation for Brittany to look at it, too, so Brittany does look, except right now just at Santana, whose mouth hangs open, a little slack, like she's reaching for words that aren't quite there for her. Brittany lies down on her stomach, stretching out on the bed. She locks her eyes on Santana, who keeps her head down, her hair hanging around her, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Santana seems shy, but also like she's waiting. Brittany finally looks down at the notebook, too.

She immediately finds her own name again, written four times on the left side of the page. At the top of the page, it says _M.A.S.H._ in big letters. At the bottom of bottom of the page, there are numbers. On the side, a list: _Porsche_, _Rolls Royce_, _Some Nice Ass Car_, _Bug_. In the middle of the page are too many tic marks for Brittany to count.

"Oh my god, San!" Brittany says. "When did you do this? Is this from ninth grade?"

Santana nods guiltily, but doesn't look Brittany in the face.

Brittany pauses and thinks back to the M.A.S.H. fortune-telling craze from that year, when every slumber party involved a least a couple rounds of the game, which was supposed to tell you who you would marry, where you would live, how many kids you'd have, and what sort of car you would drive when you got older. Brittany liked it, but Santana hated it. She always sat out while the other girls played at big parties, and when it was just her and Brittany having sleepovers, they didn't play the game at all.

(It says Brittany's name four times down the side of the page.)

Suddenly, Brittany gets it.

"Wait. Did you play this by yourself?"

Santana nods again and Brittany is pretty sure that she's never seen Santana blush so badly.

"But you always said M.A.S.H. was super lame!" Brittany says, honestly surprised.

"Yeah, Britt," Santana says, voice low. She shrugs, not because she doesn't know what to say, but because she has something big to say and she probably doesn't know how to say it—Brittany can tell. "I said it was stupid because...," she trails off, looking at the page again.

Brittany nods knowingly. "Everybody thinks you hate things, but really you just love things quietly, to keep them safe," she says, because it's true. "I think it's adorable and really thoughtful of you."

Santana melts at the compliment, curling up into it like a cat will curl into a good ear scratch. Her face looks bright. A pause, then suddenly, Santana blurts, "I cheated, though."

She points to the page and Brittany follows her finger, which rests on the word _Bug _in the list of cars. Santana chuckles, "I didn't give a damn about what kind of car I'd have, but I knew you liked those VW Bugs because you said they were cute and reminded you of Herbie. I think I landed on the Porsche when I counted for real, but I circled the Bug, because I knew you'd want that one. That's why I put it on the list in the first place."

Now Santana really looks at Brittany, and instead of rolling her eyes or shrugging, she just holds her breath and smiles a little. Brittany feels like this moment is really special because she knew Santana liked her like that for a long time before Santana told her so in the hallway last year, but she also had no idea that Santana knew that she liked her like that for such a long time, or how much Santana liked her, even all the way back in the ninth grade.

Brittany grins. "Well, you kind of cheated when you put my name down four times, too, San. It's supposed to be four different people."

Santana laughs a little bit. "Hey!" she says. "I can't help it if I...," but then she stops, because this is a game about Big Time Things, like getting married. Santana looks at Brittany helplessly, like she's waiting for something, her mouth half open in a smile, but her eyes shy.

Brittany knows she has to be careful not to embarrass Santana, but also that there's an answer Santana wants to hear to the question she sort of just asked without really asking. Brittany looks back down at the page again and points to the bottom part.

"How many kids did we have?" she asks quietly, and even though she can only see Santana's face in her peripheral vision, she takes in Santana's huge, relieved smile. Brittany can't help it; she smiles big, too.

Santana doesn't say anything for a few seconds, but then she says "Two" in her sweetest little mouse voice.

"Perfect," Brittany says, because, really, she can't think of anything better.

"Yeah?" Santana says, and her voice sounds all fluttery. Her eyes meet Brittany's and Brittany feels a warm, sweet, swooping feeling in her heart.

For such a long time, they couldn't want things with each other, or at least they couldn't say that they wanted things with each other out loud. Everything they hoped for one another, they had to scribble into secret notebooks and toss under beds to hide, or lock up inside their hearts, keeping it all unspoken and secret.

But now they can want the things they want.

Brittany feels tears pricking at the corners of her eyes, not because she's sad, but because she wants everything Santana wants and she wants it so, so much. She leans forward and props herself up on her elbows, taking Santana's face in her hands. She looks deeply into Santana's eyes and Santana looks back; they're not afraid.

Brittany laughs, not at anything funny, but because. "I'm just so in love with you," she says carefully, enunciating each word.

"I'm so in love with you, too," Santana says, throat tight, looking a little dumbstruck with Brittany so close to her face. Santana sinks down on the bed so that she's level with Brittany.

The door to the room opens and Brittany and Santana fly away from each other like the repellant ends of magnets. They hear a gasp and look up to see Santana's mom standing in the doorway, one hand on the doorknob, other hand to her heart. She doesn't look upset, just startled to find an extra person in Santana's room at this time of night.

"Brittany!" Mrs. Lopez gasps. "When did you get here?"

Santana looks startled, too, but when she speaks, her voice is even. "Like an hour ago, Mom. You were in your room." She doesn't mention the part where Brittany climbed in through the window.

Santana's mom takes in the scene, both girls sitting on the bed, a notebook between them. Brittany has never felt gladder to be fully clothed around Santana; they both wear pajamas. Brittany sits with her unsocked foot tucked underneath her body, so Santana's mom probably doesn't even notice that part.

"You know it's a school night, Santana?" Santana's mom says, but she doesn't tell Brittany to go.

"I know," says Santana; she fidgets a loose corner of her bed sheets between her fingers and looks down at the mattress. Brittany's face feels really hot, because even though she and Santana weren't doing anything sexy except maybe the part where they were just about to kiss, she knows it probably looks like they were doing sexy stuff, the way Santana's mom sees it. Brittany doesn't want Santana to freak out. Santana says, "We were gonna go to sleep soon."

Santana's mom nods. "I thought you were on the telephone. I heard voices." She looks at Brittany. "You scared me."

"Sorry," Brittany says.

A pause.

"Mom? How old were you and Dad when you got married?" Santana asks suddenly. Judging by the way her eyes go wide after she speaks, Brittany guesses that Santana probably didn't mean to ask that question out loud. Brittany feels her own ears go pink. The room feels really, really hot now.

Santana's mom looks at Santana carefully. She looks at Brittany carefully, too. Her lips tighten, but not in a mean way. She seems like she knows a secret. She says, "At twenty-one. We were very young." She pauses again for a long while, just looking at Santana and Brittany. For a second, Brittany thinks that Santana's mom will tell her to go home, but then she just says, "Go to sleep soon. Don't let Dad hear you."

Brittany thinks that Santana's mom lets her stay because Santana seems so happy right now—she's not smiling, really, but her eyes look so clear and deep. They're dark, but also light at the same time. After her momentary scare, everything about her seems relaxed again. Santana was never, ever so calm like this last year.

When she thinks about it, Brittany guesses that Santana's mom probably didn't realize just how sad Santana used to be when everything was a secret because Santana was sad for such a long time that it probably just seemed like how Santana was normally. But now that Santana isn't so sad anymore, Santana's mom probably recognizes the change because the difference is so easy to spot—hindsight and all that. Santana's mom smiles a little, a fond look on her face. She closes her eyes like she's snapping a mental picture. Brittany can't help it; she smiles like a goon. Santana does, too.

(Cheese.)

"'Night, Mom," Santana says.

"'Night, Mrs. Lopez," Brittany echoes.

"Goodnight, babies," Santana's mom says, her accent soft and pretty. Brittany flushes a little, because she's almost sure that last part wasn't an accident. "Don't stay up late."

"'Kay," Santana promises. Her mom shuts the door.

For a second, Brittany and Santana just stare at each other across the bed, and Santana looks at Brittany with that soft, watery wishes-come-true look that most people never get to see on someone else's face, but that Brittany's seen Santana wear more and more often lately. It feels sacred, like a gift, and Brittany tucks it safe into her heart to keep forever.

Santana crawls forward on the mattress towards Brittany. "Okay," Santana says, her voice sticky. "Okay," she says again, ducking her head forward so their noses bump. Brittany kisses her then, first lightly, with just the very tips of their mouths touching, but then presses into the kiss more deeply.

"We should go to bed," Brittany mumbles and Santana nods, pulling away to click off the lamp.

They already brushed their teeth before they got into bed, so they don't even have to get up; they just snuggle back down into their spots. Neither one of them mentions Brittany's lost sock. Santana reaches over and sets the notebook on her nightstand, on top of her discarded jewelry; Brittany hears Santana's earrings clack against the nightstand when Santana jostles them with the paper. Brittany and Santana fold into each other, Santana draping a leg over Brittany's hipbone and pulling them close together, so their bellies and breasts touch. Brittany links her arms under Santana's and folds her hands at the back of Santana's neck, underneath her hair.

After a minute, Brittany says. "I'll probably bug you for us to have more than two, you know. Especially if they look like you."

It's quiet for a second while Santana figures out what Brittany's talking about. When she does, she gasps a little; she probably doesn't even realize that she does it.

Santana laughs softly and Brittany feels it against the bed. "With any luck, they'll look like you. But if they're hyper like you, then I don't know if I'll be able to handle that many. Or what if they fight all the time, like you and the munchkin?"

She's trying to sound practical, Brittany knows, but Brittany can tell Santana's smiling super big, even though the dark. She feels Santana's heart beating fast like the bass of a club song. Brittany feels so incredibly happy that she doesn't know if she'll ever be able to sleep again. She grins and strokes the back of Santana's neck with her fingertips.

"We could always make her babysit," Brittany says and Santana laughs, at first a loudly, but then quietly when she remembers what her mom said about staying quiet.

"Yeah, well, she owes us," Santana says happily, nuzzling her nose against Brittany's.

"Totally," says Brittany.

They stay quiet for a moment, just enjoying each other and what they know.

Finally, Santana sighs, content. "This is nice," she says. "I like talking about this stuff with you, Britt."

"I kind of can't wait until we can just always do this," Brittany whispers, kissing the corner of Santana's mouth.

"Me, either," Santana whispers back, smiling against Brittany's lips.

And it's not like they really decided anything new, because this has always kind of been the plan, even before they both realized that it was or even thought about making plans, really, but it just feels so nice to be able to say it aloud for a change. Climbing through windows is an adventure, but this is a little bit better—just them being together, making wishes that they know will come true someday in the dark, as they fall asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

**V.**

**Twenty-five**

Santana knows that if you visit your folks in Lima, even if it's just for the weekend, you will run into at least one person you knew in high school. She also knows that the number of high school people you will meet while you're in town is exponentially proportional to the amount of time you spend in Lima proper during your visit, so that if you stay one day, you'll meet one person, but if you stay for a week, you'll meet like twenty.

("Thems are the rules," Brittany agrees, winking. "Er, actually, the law.")

(Pierce's Law of Lima Losertivity, postulated and proven December 2014, to be exact.)

Santana and Brittany already ran into one of the girls from their senior cheerleading squad while they were walking around Schoonover Park yesterday. Since they've only been in Lima two days in total so far, Santana really wasn't expecting to see anyone else she knew so soon—and especially not to have him stumble upon her by chance while she was sitting on one of the decorative fixtures at the Lima Hills Mall.

She holds her wife's purse along with her own purse, crowding the plastic fern at her back, sipping from a mostly empty soda cup through a bent straw, Brittany nowhere in sight. It takes her brain a half-second longer than it should to recognize him amidst so many strangers, and especially when she didn't expect to see him here.

"Mike!" she almost yelps, setting down her soda cup, sitting up straight, waving to him over the crowd in a desperate, childish kind of way, like she saved a place for him at the lunch table on their first day back to school after summer vacation.

Even over so much mall babble, Mike perks up at the sound of his name, turning immediately towards the sound of Santana's voice. He glances past her at least three times before his eyes finally settle upon where she sits.

When he first sees her, he smiles.

When he really sees her, he starts, but then grins.

"Oh my god! Santana!" he crows, gesturing at her to remain seated as he weaves through the human traffic, swerving like a bike messenger through a New York taxi traffic jam, expertly and in liquid form, squeezing anywhere he can fit and avoiding anywhere that he can't. "I can't believe you're—! I just—!" He gestures emphatically at her, waving his hands to indicate her whole body as he fumbles for words. He gestures round, he gestures wide, he gestures soft. Finally, he slaps his hands to his sides, overcome. "You're just so—!"

"Pregnant," she supplies, her hand moving instinctually from where it rests on Brittany's purse to stroke over the new slight round of her belly. "Eighteen weeks pregnant," she amends, after a second.

"Wow," Mike says reverently. Then, "Congratulations." And, "You're back in Lima for Thanksgiving, huh?" He frowns, "Are you here by yourself or—?"

"Brittany's in the ladies' room," she says quickly. "We're visiting our folks and Brittany's mom is throwing this shower thing."

She tries to roll her eyes about the notion, but can't keep the excitement out of her voice. Santana has never had a baby shower thrown in her honor before and even just a few years ago she never would have imagined that she ever would have one. The fact that she is having one—a baby shower, a baby—kind of blows her mind. It's difficult not to smile about it, thinking back on things.

Mike nods. "That's awesome," he says. "There are actually a couple of us in town right now. Tina's here and Mercedes and I think maybe Finn and Puck? Kurt might try to make it if he doesn't have to go back to work right away. We were all going to go out for drinks on Friday, but we could change it to dessert or something, if you and Britt wanted to come along, too."

Santana pouts out her lip. "I wish we could," she says truthfully, "but we're heading to Columbus tonight to stay at Brittany's grandparents' house. That's where we're having Thanksgiving and the shower deal. We've gotta leave as soon as Brittany and I get back to her house—if she ever comes back from the ladies' room, Jesus fucking Christ."

"She's probably carving your names on one of the stall doors," Mike says approvingly.

"Totally."

Santana hadn't even noticed Brittany walking up behind her and jumps a little at the sound of Brittany's voice. "Jesus!" Santana says, drawing a hand to her heart.

(Something twitches inside of her, low, startled because she's startled.)

Brittany sets a gentling hand on her shoulder. "You found Mike," Brittany says placidly, as if Santana did it on purpose. "Did you tell him about the baby?"

Both Santana and Mike laugh because, well.

"Yes, I told him about the baby," Santana says, giving the new curve of her belly another low stroke.

"You guys didn't make a Facebook announcement, did you?" Mike asks, "Because if you did, I somehow missed it."

"Nobody uses Facebook anymore, Boy Chang," Santana scoffs.

He quirks an eyebrow, "So does anybody else from the glee club know?"

"A few," Brittany says, sitting down on the decorative fixture at Santana's side. "We haven't made like an official announcement, though."

Mike nods. "So when I get drinks with everyone, I should keep it on the down low?"

(When she was younger, Santana used to think that her feelings for Brittany were entirely private. Only after she came out did she realize that it's impossible to keep something that big a secret.)

"No, you can tell people," Santana says, surprised with herself for how much she actually wants to share her good news, even with people she hasn't seen much of since high school. "In fact," she decides, "get out your phone. You get to deliver our official announcement to the glee club."

For a second, Mike looks confused, but then recognition blooms on his face. As he fumbles in his pocket for his smartphone, Santana shares a look with Brittany, silently checking that she's read the situation correctly. Brittany grins because of course she has.

By the time Mike is ready to take the picture, Santana and Brittany have laced their hands together into one of their favorite I-love-you-so-much knots. They turn towards each other on the fixture. Santana takes Brittany by the shoulders and Brittany's left hand migrates to Santana's baby bump, cradling it. Mike takes a few steps back to get them both in the frame. He counts out one, two, three and Brittany and Santana lean in for a kiss.

The shutter sound on his smartphone plays just as their lips meet and it's sort of stupid to feel so incredibly romantic and grateful and at peace in the dumpiest mall in Lima, Santana knows, but she can't help herself.

(Sometimes wishes do come true.)

(And she just does and she just does and she just does.)

"What should I caption it?" Mike asks, leaning in to show them his handiwork.

"How about just 'Happy Thanksgiving'?" Brittany says and Santana nods her approval.

Mike enters in the text at warp speed, his fingers moving so quickly across the keypad that Santana can barely even follow his movements. "Do you want me to tell them anything?" he offers.

"Yeah," Santana smiles. "Just tell them we're really happy."


End file.
